The more holidays this author has the better the wool market performs! In late October we saw a 100 cent rise for most fleece types while on hiatus in New Zealand dissecting Australia’s dismal World Cup performance. This time, the market took a fifty cent rise, hot on the heels of a week studying monsoonal rain events in Fiji! After two sales of stability, the market finally made a move. By the end of the week 50 cents had been added to the EMI to see it at 1243 cents. A solid start in Melbourne on Tuesday saw momentum build to record double digit rises across the two remaining days in all three centres. The pass-in rate was below 10% nationally, a rarity given Fremantle’s tough stance selling wool. A great result when the A$ keeps rising, peaking at 108 US cents on Wednesday night, almost 10 cents higher than the Sale 24 level before Christmas. This week’s close has the market at a 5 month high, just the fourth occasion since the end of September the EMI has cracked the 1200 cent barrier.

This week’s rise came from almost nothing as popular consensus was an unchanged or even slightly cheaper market as the exchange rate worsened and too many external factors like interest rates, leadership uncertainty in Australian politics, Middle East unrest and Greece’s indecision to accept the bail-out package from the EU had most buyers and traders in a “holding pattern” as to when to step in and buy and what exactly would trigger this next purchasing phase. In our favour is a slowly decreasing wool clip, a short term drop in receivals to some broker’s stores due to the floods in QLD and NSW and the fundamental supply and demand situation. Finer types led the charge as 19 micron and lower added 70 to 100 cents. This continues their good gains over the past two weeks for sub 17 micron as we build to increased offerings of fine wool in the next three weeks with reportedly good inquiry helping to lift these types back to some sort of reasonable level (16.5 now at 2000 cents clean). Medium to broad fleece types gained 45 to 65 cents with the stand-outs being 21 and 25s adding 80 to 90 cents. We cleared every fleece lot with, as usual, discounts for colour, cott and VM shrinking dramatically with 23% making over 1000 cents and just 10 lots under 800 cents. A great result!

Skirtings opened the sale with a bang. 17 micron and finer lifting by 30 to 40 cents and 18 and broader around 5% VM progressing 10 to 20 cents. The final day was subdued when compared to the previous day but buyers still managed to lift all descriptions another 10 cents. Cardings made consistent gains over the two selling days with the MCI adding 5 cents on both days to see the indicator at 707cents. Crossbreds weren’t to be outdone either as 28 to 30 micron posted 20 to 30 cent gains with 32s 10 cents dearer. Next week seems to be a bit of an unknown as yet, but anything may happen!